


Sinking, Feeling

by PanicFOB



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Deviates From Canon, F/M, continues through Endgame, starts after the first Avengers and before The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22131073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanicFOB/pseuds/PanicFOB
Summary: Summary: When your brother is a SHIELD agent, it’s inevitable that you’ll make acquaintances with the recently defrosted Steve Rogers. You quickly become rather invested in the duty-driven Captain and realize that being attached to a hero isn’t always the easiest thing in life.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Sinking, Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> You might recognize the title because this series is based on a one-shot that I wrote quite some time ago. I'm basically expanding on that same story. It's not necessary that you read the one-shot, but it's still up if you want to check it out. I'll be reposting it here as chapter 11 because chapters 1-10 will take place before the one-shot.

You crossed your bedroom to the old wooden jewelry box your mother had given you. In it, you easily located the simple necklace at the top of the tangle of silver. It was the one you wore the most often: a delicate chain with a small baby blue topaz stone hanging from it. It was your favorite color, and you liked to believe that it suited you well. The necklace was also a sort of good luck charm. All your best moments in life had happened while that darling little accessory had rested across your collarbones.

It was when you were feeling your most insecure that you would put the thing on, and you definitely needed it now. Robert, your older brother, had invited you to a casual barbeque/party at his house with all his work friends…. his work friends from SHIELD. You were a bit intimidated, to say the least. Here you were, a college English professor, and you’d be expected to converse and hold your own with some of the best espionage agents that the country had to offer. You were used to Robert because you’d grown up with him and nothing your brother did could intimidate you, but these people he would be inviting, well, you had no idea about them. They would surely see you as the most boring and meek person on earth.

But you had your good luck charm now clasped around the back of your neck, and you hoped that would mean that something wonderful would happen tonight.

You didn’t own a car because it never felt necessary in this city. You took a cab to your brother’s place, and the ride was a short ten minutes. Although he worked most of the time in DC, he kept his home in NYC and spent as much time here as he could. You assumed that all these coworkers he was inviting either lived here as well or had flown in simply for the special occasion.

Before you could even knock on his front door, it burst open to reveal Robert along with a male agent and a female agent. They were both strikingly attractive, and you immediately ran a hand over your hair as an intense bout of self-consciousness set in. He introduced the guy as Harry and the woman as Sharon. You shook both of their hands and plastered on your best friendly smile. It wasn’t until all of you found your way to Robert’s back yard that you got the real shock though. Standing next to the grill, flipping rows of juicy steak was a man you recognized from the news. Steve Rogers.

So, Captain America was working for SHIELD now… interesting.

He turned to look at you as your brother made an effort to introduce everyone. You instantly noticed that his bright eyes were the same color as the topaz that rested on your neckline. Something wonderful indeed.

***  
An hour later, everyone at the barbeque was drunk, everyone except you and Steve Rogers. You were surprised at the lack of slur in his voice and sway in his step considering he’d had quite a few bottles of beer, but you assumed it had something to do with his superpowers. There were now a total of four grown adults swimming around in your brother’s pool, fully clothed. You worried a bit about the safety risks of swimming while drunk, but you figured Captain America would make a pretty good lifeguard if needed.

He’d hardly said a word since you arrived, not to you or to anyone. Instead, he glanced around, intimately studying every little thing that he could. Watching the smartphones in people’s hands with suspicion, quirking an eyebrow at the pool lights, tilting his head at the mention of a meme. And just as intently as he observed everything else, you observed him. He was rather fascinating, a man out of time, obviously trying to wrap his head around all the oddities of the twenty-first century. When even your brother had fallen victim to drunkenness, you decided to take pity on the blonde and walked over to the lawn chair next to the one Steve sat in.

As you took your seat, you pulled up a few of your favorite memes that you had saved on your phone. Without a word in introduction, you held the screen out in front of his face. He glanced at you questioningly and then looked at his phone. You watched the furrow in his brow finally ease, and then the tiniest of smiles graced the corner of his plump lips.

“That’s quite humorous,” he admitted.

“That’s a meme,” you informed him.

“And there are dozens of these? On the internet?”

“Probably thousands, maybe millions.”

“What’s the function of them exactly?”

“They don’t really have a function other than comedy. They make you laugh, so you save them and then show them to other people to spread the joy.”

“That’s nice,” he said. His tone and smile were genuine. You found a further humor in the fact that a man born 1918 could get behind the meme movement so easily.

“Do you have a cellphone, Steve?”

“Fury gave me one, but I don’t really know what to do with it other than answer when it rings.”

“Do you have it with you now?”

He fished it out of the back pocket of his jeans and handed it over without question.

“I’m just going to save my phone number in it, and then send myself a text so that I have yours. That way, any time I come across a funny meme, I can send it to you and make you smile.”

His eyes were bright, glimmering in the same way that your necklace always did in the light. “I’d like that,” he told you with earnest.

You returned his phone to him and sat in silence for a moment. Then, another question occurred to you. “How long have you been friends with my brother?”

“Since Monday, I think.”

“Monday?”

“We had a mission together, carried on a single conversation, and then I believe he said ‘I like you, Rogers. Want to come to a barbeque I’m hosting this weekend?’ And I didn’t see any harm in agreeing to it.”

There was a pureness that emanated from him, an aura that clearly said this man would never intentionally cause you harm. He seemed safe and secure. Strong and stable. The very sort of comfort you had craved all your life but had never been successful at finding.

“Well, I’m glad you came, Steve,” you told him as you flashed a shy smile of your own. You talked for an hour more until he did, in fact, have to rescue a drunken SHIELD agent out of the pool from a near-drowning incident.


End file.
